Radiology is a branch of medicine in which various imaging techniques may be employed to diagnose and treat a wide variety of diseases. Named for the radioactive substances used to produce the images, radiologists, also known as clinical radiologists, may employ many techniques for imaging the patient, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT, or “cat scan”), ultrasonography (US), nuclear medicine (NM), x-ray/plain film, angiography, and fluoroscopy, to name a few. In addition to their medical education, radiologists receive training in reading and interpreting radiographic images.
To facilitate diagnosis and treatment, a patient's physician, such as a general practitioner, may order one or more radiology tests on the patient. A radiology technologist positions the patient before the imaging apparatus and initiates the imaging function, which produces the radiographic image. Rarely, the patient's physician is capable of interpreting the radiographic image. In many environments, such as hospitals and group practices, the task of interpreting the image is left to the radiologist.
With such division of labor prevalent in medicine, the patient is rarely in communication with the radiologist directly. Thus, before interpreting the radiologist images, the radiologist may prefer or require additional patient information from the physician, such as historical information, known symptoms, and other communication obtained by the patient's physician. Once the radiographic image and the additional patient information are received, the radiologist produces a preliminary report. The patient physician is able to diagnose and treat the patient, in large part, based upon the preliminary report.
Radiographic images are ordered in the diagnosis of a number of different patient maladies. While the patient with a common cold may avoid being imaged, patients with broken bones, pregnant women, and cancer patients routinely obtain radiographic images prior to diagnosis or during treatment. The successful operation of a medical facility, such as a hospital or group practice, therefore, depends on the availability of one or more radiologists at all times and the efficient interpretation of radiographic images by the radiologist.
The availability of radiologists and radiology services during weekends and after-hours (e.g. 5:00 p.m.-7:00 a.m.) may be particularly problematic, as many facilities do not have a radiologist present during these hours. Further, many physicians may not have radiology equipment (even x-ray machines) on-site, and may thus send the patient to a radiology laboratory to obtain the images, which are then returned to the diagnosing physician. The delays associated with these conditions may impair the ability of the diagnosing physician to successfully and timely treat the patient.
In the past, radiology clinics principally employed printed film to capture the radiographic image, which the radiologist then physically hung on “view boxes” to illuminate the image. Today, many of the radiographic images generated using the techniques enumerated above may be stored digitally and viewed on computer displays.
A model known as Patient Archiving and Communication System, or PACS, is employed in some medical facilities. Under PACS, radiographic images are stored on computer media, viewed on displays, and manipulated using radiology-specific software. This eliminates the need to print the radiographic image on film (which is expensive); instead, the radiographic images are stored electronically at significant cost savings. PACS has significantly reduced the time and energy required to prepare the images for evaluation, allows the images to be viewed from multiple computer-system-based sources, allows the images to be viewed simultaneously by many users at different locations, and allows side-by-side comparison of images. The radiographic images may be transferred electronically, rather than being delivered by couriers to their destinations. Some PACS implementations additionally integrate dictated reports with the radiographic images and the patient's hospital information. Combining images and reports can be an expensive and complicated process under PACS, however. Unfortunately, there are a number of vendors that provide proprietary PACS solutions, many of which are incompatible with one another.
Thus, there is a continuing need to improve radiological services so as to facilitate patient diagnosis and treatment.